Hertz offering $6 hourly rental fee for electric Smart

Hertz tells Drive On it has decided to charge $6 per hour to rent an electric Smart ForTwo minicar, when that program kicks off in New York City Dec. 15. That's a buck an hour cheaper than renting Nissan Leaf or Mitsubishi i-MiEV electrics.

The hourly pricing is what you get with membership in the Connect by Hertz program -- a monthly fee that gets you access to cars by the hour. We first told you about the electric-car rentals in this Drive On blog post.

Where to recharge? At first, the Hertz rentals will come with lists. Eventually, the Hertz-supplied navigation systems will include charging stations.

Those remain few and far between, but interest is growing. Norwalk. Conn., says it just signed an agreement with Car Charging Group to put 208-240-volt charging stations in three municipal parking garages. Those are the so-called Level II stations that can charge faster than if you plugged in the car to a 110-120-volt home outlet. Typically, that's a few hours instead of overnight.

Car Charging Group forecasts nearly 1 million stations in the U.S. by 2015 -- including units from all makers. As noted in an earlier Drive On post here, GE is trying to position itself as a major charging-station seller, and has agreed to buy 12,000 Chevrolet Volt electrics to help get the charger market kicked off.

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About Chris Woodyard

Chris Woodyard is an auto writer for USA TODAY who covers all aspects of motoring. He revels in the exhaust note of a Maserati and the sharp creases of a Cadillac CTS. Chris strives to live a Porsche life on a Scion budget. More about Chris